Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Wednesday quelled a peaceful march staged by Factions Coordination Committee in Bethlehem in condemnation of Balfour declaration on its 100th anniversary.

The PIC reporter revealed that hundreds of citizens and activists participated in the march. They carried posters denouncing the ill-famed Balfour declaration and chanted slogans demanding an end to its consequences. The protesters burned an effigy of the late British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour.

IOF soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades in addition to rubber bullets at the marchers as they approached the northern entrance to Bethlehem. A number of Palestinians suffered breathing problems as a result.

The British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, published an article in the Telegraph on Monday, that he claimed to have written in the same room Balfour used a century ago to prepare the Balfour letter.

In his letter, Johnson defended Balfour declaration and praised the UK’s role in paving the way for the creation of Israel and Balfour's predecessor’s role in backing the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, describing it as an "incontestable moral goal: to provide a persecuted people with a safe and secure homeland."

He added, "I am proud of Britain's part in creating Israel;" adding that Balfour declaration was "indispensable to the creation of a great nation."

At the end of the article, Johnson warned that one of the key pillars of Balfour declaration is that the rights of non-Jewish communities shall be protected, which he said "has not been fully realized."

Johnson also said that the idea of two sovereign states for Israelis and Palestinians remains the only viable solution for peace and that London remained committed to a two-state solution.

He added that the borders of the two states should be as they were before the Six Day war in 1967, with Jerusalem as a "shared capital" and "equal land swaps to reflect the national, security, and religious interest of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples."

He also said, "A century on, Britain will give whatever possible support in order to close the ring and complete the unfinished business of the Balfour declaration.”

Johnson stressed the need to ensure the security of Israelis and prevent any terrorist threats against Israel, according to his article. He also called for respecting the sovereignty of the Palestinians and guaranteeing their freedom of movement.

The British Foreign Secretary referred to the United Nations resolution 1515 as the only just solution to the Palestinian refugees cause and their right to return to their homeland.

Many analysts and politicians believe that the British government's announcement of its intention to celebrate the Balfour Declaration constitutes a denial of the Palestinian rights, from which Palestinians were stripped of, as a result of this unjust Declaration and constitutes insistence on this crime committed by the British Mandate government in Palestine in 1917.

Zaher al-Shashtari, an official in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP, said: “Britain, which is responsible for the disastrous Declaration, is still going on with its arrogance and hostility towards the Palestinian people, by declaring that it will celebrate this occasion, and by having a credit in establishing the Zionist entity.”

Al-Shashtari said during an interview with the PIC, and in response to this step, Palestinians should take further steps locally and internationally.

He added, “There must be a popular Palestinian demand of boycotting the UK and addressing all international and legal institutions including the International Criminal Court for the historic injustice that has been inflicted on the Palestinian people because of this terrible Declaration. As for the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, they should carry out their duty and ask the Arab League to take action against Britain.”

In the same context, Nasr Abu Jaish, an official in the Palestinian People’s Party, stressed that “The shameful Balfour Declaration has caused damage to our people, including imprisonment, killings, settlements and displacement of our people,” calling on the British government to recognize the state of Palestine and apologize to the Palestinian people.

He told the PIC, “The British Prime Minister is the one who killed the children of Palestine, and her statement that she wants to celebrate this Declaration is against freedom and human justice.

“All the Palestinian people should engage in the days of anger and rejection of this notorious Declaration,” he emphasized.

Abu Jaish called on the Palestinian people, in the occupied homeland and in the diaspora, to send letters of protest to the British embassies asking them to apologize to our people.

Kamal Alawneh, a media and political analyst, said that the British plan to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration “demonstrates that Britain is adamant in its hostile position against the Arab and Muslim people in general and the Palestinian people in particular”, describing such stance as abhorrently racist.”

He added: “The British government’s decision to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration indicates that the British evil policy has not changed and is persistent in supporting the Israeli oppression against the Palestinian people, which constitutes a blatant attack on Palestinian people and human rights. Britain occupies the top list of global terrorism, in the past and present and perhaps in the future, for its crime against the Palestinian people by depriving them of their simplest national and political rights.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May has recently said that the UK would celebrate the Balfour Declaration, saying she is proud of Britain’s role in establishing Israel.

“We are proud of our role in the establishment of the State of Israel,” she said.

She expressed her satisfaction with her country’s relations with Israel, and for enhancing these relations in the fields of trade and other fields.

An Israeli parliamentarian has expressed his support for formal apartheid, backing annexation of entire West Bank, but without its Palestinian inhabitants being granted the right to vote.

MK Miki Zohar, who is chair of the Knesset’s Special Committee for Distributive Justice and Social Equality, expressed his views in an interview with Haaretz newspaper.

“When we say to the Palestinians, ‘We are giving you a state, let’s make peace’ – it’s deceiving them,” Zohar told the paper.

“No one is going to give them a state, not the left either. I am saying: Let’s cut this problem off before it begins and stop with the lies. We’ll tell them: ‘Guys, no state, live here with us, prosper, earn a living, educate your children’.”

Asked whether he meant that Palestinians in an annexed West Bank would not vote in the Knesset elections, Zohar replied in the affirmative.

“We must always maintain control over the mechanisms of the state, as the Jewish people that received this country by right and not by an act of charity.”

Over the years it is very possible the Arabs could become the majority here, and I cannot take this risk.

According to Zohar, such views are “not extreme” but “realistic.”

He continued: “In my opinion, he [the Palestinian] doesn’t have the right to national identity, because he does not own the land of this country.”

“I want him as a resident by virtue of my own sense of fairness – because he was born here and lives here, I will not tell him to leave. I’m sorry to say this, but they have one conspicuous liability: They weren’t born Jews.”

With respect to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, Zohar said: “They will have to choose if they are loyal to the state”, based on three conditions: “national service; recognition of the Israeli flag, which would fly above every public institution; and recognizing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

“And this would not be the decision of an individual, but of a public authority. If they can’t meet these criteria, they would no longer be able to vote for the Knesset.”

A top parliamentary member of the UK Labour Party has said that “the most important way” for the UK to mark the 100th anniversary of Balfour Declaration is to “recognize Palestine.”

In an interview published Monday, with the Middle East Eye news site, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the UK should not celebrate the declaration, which pledged Britain’s support for a Jewish national home, as there is not yet a Palestinian state.

“I don’t think we celebrate the Balfour Declaration but I think we have to mark it because I think it was a turning point in the history of that area and I think probably the most important way of marking it is to recognize Palestine,” said Thornberry, according to Days of Palestine.

“The British government have said they will do {so}, it’s just a question of when the time is right and it seems to me this is the time.

“We need to have two states, two viable states, two viable secure safe states. We must not forget that in the end that is the only solution,” she added. “We should measure everything we do against that.”

Thornberry issued harsh criticism against Israel’s settlement policies in the occupied West Bank, saying that the Israeli government has “lost its way” and is undermining a two-state solution.

“What are they now doing? Are they heading for a one-state [reality]? It seems, on the face of it, that they may be,” she said.

She is set to attend a dinner in London, this week, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in celebrating the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, and said she would also go to a separate event with Palestinians, to mark the anniversary.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) along with Jewish settlers assaulted a UK solidarity delegation who came on foot from Britain to occupied Palestinian territories in order to mark the 100th anniversary of Balfour Declaration on November 02.

The UK delegation consisted of 60 activists who walked from the UK to Occupied Jerusalem in a journey that lasted for 135 days. The delegation was received by al-Khalil organizations which offered the delegation a tour in the city.

The settlers also assaulted al-Khalil Assistant Governor Nidal al-Jaabari. Meanwhile, IOF troops detained al-Khalil Governor Consultant Mahdi Mereb for a few hours upon the request of settlers who ousted the local and foreign activists.

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami al-Hamdallah demanded on Sunday that United Kingdom bear responsibility and apologize for Balfour Declaration which granted the Jews a national homeland in Palestine.

In a speech he delivered during the inauguration ceremony of a group of governmental schools in Nablus city, Hamdallah called on the UK to correct its mistake rather than celebrate it.

He urged the international community to end the historic tyranny practiced against the Palestinians on the 100th anniversary of the ill-famed Balfour promise, which coincides on November 02.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May said earlier that she would celebrate the 100th anniversary of Balfour Declaration, which is a promise made by the British government to the Zionist Movement stipulating the establishment of a national homeland for Jews over Palestinian territories.

Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said that the Balfour declaration has no legal or political basis, calling on Britain to redress its historic mistake, which “displaced the Palestinian people, led to continued shedding of their blood and violated their right to their land.”

“Though it sounds British, the promise (Balfour declaration) was supported by many countries at the time,” Isam Younis, director of the center, told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC).

Younis held the international community legally and morally responsible for the Palestinian people’s displacement and everything they have been suffering since the Nakba (catastrophe).

He emphasized that Britain and the international community insists on ignoring the Palestinian people’s rights and refusing to revoke the illegal Balfour declaration.

“Obviously, Britain still insists on not correcting the historic mistake it had committed against the Palestinians and this is apparent from the remarks of its politicians, who reflect the level of rudeness they have descended to towards the rightful owners of the land,” he added.

Leader of UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has declined an invitation from pro-Israel lobby to attend a Balfour Declaration centenary gala dinner, next month, in London.

Corbyn announced, according to Days of Palestine, that he would decline an invitation celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration – which was a promise by the British Foreign Secretary in 1917 to establish a homeland for the Jews in Palestine – led directly to the creation of the Zionist regime in 1948 and the dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council in Britain Jonathan Goldstein called Corbyn’s decision not to attend the event “deeply unfortunate.”

“I do think it will not have been amiss for Mr Corbyn to understand that the Jewish community will have taken great heart and great comfort for seeing him attend such an event because it recognises the right of Israel to exist,” he said.

Goldstein added that Corbyn had also not attended a reception for Labour Friends of Israel at the party conference in October.

The UK government refused to issue an apology in April, this year, saying it had helped to establish a “homeland for the Jewish people in the land to which they had such strong historical and religious ties was the right and moral thing to do, particularly against the background of centuries of persecution.”

Protests will take place across Britain, next month, as Theresa May and her Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, celebrate the centenary.

Palestinian minister of foreign affairs Riyadh al-Maliki has threatened to take legal action against Britain over its intent to mark the centennial of the Balfour declaration, which led to the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In remarks to the Palestinian radio, Maliki strongly denounced the British government for its blatant insistence on celebrating the catastrophic Balfour declaration instead of responding to Palestinian demands for apology.

“The British position openly defies the opinion of its own people, the international community and Palestine, and reflects real indifference to Britain’s historical responsibility for the crime it had committed one hundred years ago,” he said.

The minister said the Palestinian Authority would study the possibility of filing lawsuits against the British government with British or European courts over the crimes it had committed against the Palestinian people.

Ignoring widespread calls for apology, UK premier Theresa May told the House of Commons last Wednesday that her country would celebrate “with pride” its role in the creation of Israel and the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration.

Foreign Minister Riyad Malki criticized, on Thursday, remarks British Prime Minister Theresa May made the day before regarding the centennial of the Balfour declaration, describing them as “offensive and unacceptable.”

“Ms. May boasted about this declaration, which willfully and determinedly disregarded the existence of the Palestinian people and denied their national rights,” said Malki in a statement, WAFA reports.

“Most disturbing is the British Prime Minister’s tone of condescension,” he said. “Even when attempting to sound mindful of what she called ‘sensitivities’, Ms. May failed to acknowledge the Palestinian people and their suffering or recognize their inalienable right to self-determination, which Israel continues to deny.”

The Foreign Minister went on to say that “in line with the Balfour Declaration’s original racism and disdain for the Palestinian people, Ms. May glossed over the reality and facts and consciously chose to refrain from addressing the continued injustice that the Palestinian people suffer because of the chain of events that this declaration had set off.”

Malki said that May’s eagerness to celebrate the declaration “is a testament to the colonial, racist mentality that exacted injustice and suffering on peoples around the world. That mentality rationalized Britain’s illegitimate gifting of another people’s homeland to a third group and simultaneously disregarded the indigenous people’s national identity and rights.”

“If Prime Minister May wants to show British sensitivity to the ongoing pain and suffering of the Palestinian people, she should start out by acknowledging Britain’s culpability for this ongoing injustice and recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights. The legacy of injustice and suffering of the Balfour Declaration runs through the generations and has touched the lives of every Palestinian for the past hundred years. This is a shameful legacy; one that Britain must acknowledge and make right.”